peeled the note from the mirror and looked into her own eyes. She had gotten older since she’d last seen her face.
Her eyelids drooped, and the corners of her mouth sagged from fear and pain. She moved her hair back. The scar was livid, and there was blood behind her ear.
She released the sheaf of hair, and for a moment her younger self was reflected in the glass. Her radiant smile as she dressed for her wedding, patted powder on her unblemished skin.
Tears jumped into her eyes, and she ran the hot water again and cried into the stream, scrubbing hard, trying to wash all of this away, at the same time listening for the boot kicking in the door and the beating.
What kind of God would allow her to be taken again?
She thought about Joe’s many stern warnings and the height of her arrogance.
She’d maneuvered around him, followed Petrović, refused to wait for the men with guns to do their job.
She had brought this down on herself.
Anna was so agonized by her own behavior that she couldn’t stand to look at herself anymore. She opened the medicine cabinet and found a bottle of drugstore painkillers. She spilled tablets into her shaking hand, swallowed down the maximum dose, and put more pills in her pocket.
She turned off the light and quietly opened the bathroom door. There was another door at the end of the short hallway and also an opening, an entrance to another room.
Anna tiptoed on bare feet to that entranceway, and even though she didn’t know what she was walking into, she stepped over the threshold.
CHAPTER 92
Anna was only looking for an exit, but stepping into the living room, she was taken by the size of it, the high ceilings, light coming from a large, muted TV near a fireplace.
A news show was on, an international channel, with the times in major cities displayed in the lower corner of the screen. Anna watched until it read, San Francisco, 3:15.
She couldn’t be sure, but as best as she could remember, she’d lost herself on Friday night.
She’d been in the Tesla outside Petrović’s house, prepared to follow him to whatever mysterious places he went when he wasn’t at home or at the restaurant. The rear-end collision had entirely shocked her, throwing her into the steering wheel and out of the seat. She’d been furious when she’d gotten out of her smashed loaner, and then stunned to see the Serbian soldier in the blue Escalade.
Anna remembered him clearly now from the hotel in Djoba. He had beaten her with a chair leg and then … she didn’t want to think about it.
He was probably here now.
Anna felt suddenly light-headed and her knees buckled. She grabbed at the wall, slipped down to the floor, and stayed until she felt she could stand.
Where was he? Was he watching her now?
She had to leave this place. She had to get out.
Anna looked around the dimly lit room, past the clumps of furniture, to the shuttered windows, back to the sofa, where she noticed the dark shape of a person sitting there with arms around tucked-up knees.
God, no. Was it him?
No. It was a woman.
Another prisoner.
Anna spoke in a whisper. “Hello?”
The woman on the couch beckoned her to come over.
“I’m Susan,” she said. “Talking together is against the rules, so we have to speak softly and fast.”
CHAPTER 93
Anna sat down beside Susan, and for the next three hours they barely moved, their bodies touching from shoulder to hip to thigh. They spoke like sisters.
Susan said, “This is important, Anna. We have to play it cool.”
Anna said, “I know. Buy time.”
Susan told her about the routine, the names of the men who watched, cooked, used her, and Anna asked about Petrović—did he live here and how often did he come to this place?
“Petrović? I don’t know that name. Tony is the boss. Antonije Branko.”
“That’s him. Tony. It’s a fake name. Susan, he’s a war criminal. I know him from Bosnia. Do you know if he was with me last night?”
Susan said, “No, it was my turn. He went to your room, but you were out cold. He said he likes it better when the girl has a little fight. You got Junior. He doesn’t care if you’re already dead.”
Tears rolled down Anna’s face, but she talked through them. She told Susan that she had known Tony as Colonel Slobodan Petrović and that he had decimated her town in Bosnia.
Susan grabbed her hand as Anna spoke of